Stuff

Ten days to go to the election and we’ve had interesting day of polls – four new GB polls, some new constituency polling and a new Scottish poll. The four GB polls today are the weekly Ashcroft and ICM telephone polls, the twice weekly Populus poll and, to come later on tonight, the daily YouGov poll for the Sun:

Populus had figures of CON 33%, LAB 36%, LDEM 8%, UKIP 14%, GRN 5% (tabs). They continue to produce figures that are more favourable to Labour than many of the other pollsters – you have to go all the way back to August to find a Populus poll with a Conservative lead.

In contrast ICM have tended to produce some of the better polls for the Conservatives – their last four polls showed Conservative leads and today’s has topline figures of CON 35%, LAB 32%, LDEM 9%, UKIP 13%, GRN 5% (tabs)

Lord Ashcroft’s weekly poll had topline figures of CON 36%, LAB 30%, LDEM 9%, KIP 11%, GRN 7% (tabs) – this is obviously a particularly good poll for the Conservative party, but all the usual caveats apply. No other poll is showing such positive figures for them.

Lord Ashcroft also released four new constituency polls, this time covering four UKIP target seats (or at least, four where he had previously found them doing well, I’m not sure whether Cannock Chase was ever a seat they were targetting – certainly Ashcroft’s poll found respondents reporting a lower level of UKIP activity there). When Ashcroft previously polled these seats he found UKIP in an extremely close second place, this time he found them falling back and seemingly out of serious contention in three of them:

Cannock Chase is a seat the Conservatives won on a vast swing last time, but where the new MP has stood down after various gaffes. In October 2014 Ashcroft found UKIP two points behind Labour, 30% to Labour’s 32%. The latest poll still shows Labour ahead, but UKIP now trail in third place on 21%.

Great Grimsby is widely regarded as the best opportunity for a UKIP gain from Labour at this election – a Lincolnshire fishing port where the veteran MP Austin Mitchell is standing down. In December Ashcroft found UKIP just a point behind Labour, but they’ve fallen back considerably since then and today’s poll has them 17 points behind Labour

Great Yarmouth fits the pattern for a typical UKIP target seat, a seaside town and marginal seat out on England’s east coast. Last July Ashcroft found a tight three way fight – Con 33%, UKIP 31%, Lab 28%. Today’s poll has UKIP falling back to 24%, but Conservative and Labour still in a close battle – Con 36%, Lab 34%

Castle Point is the only one of the three where UKIP still seems to be in the race. It’s an unusual seat – the former Conservative MP Bob Spink sort of defected to UKIP in 2008 and contested the seat as an Independent in 2010, coming second with 27%. In February Ashcroft found UKIP just one point behind the Tories, in today’s poll the Conservatives have widened their lead to 5 points.

Finally a new TNS poll of Scotland shows the SNP moving into an even stronger lead. Their topline figures with changes from their last Scottish poll are CON 13%(nc), LAB 22%(-2), LDEM 6%(nc), SNP 54%(+2), UKIP 2%(+1), GRN 2%(-1). Tabs are here.

808 Responses to “A round up of Monday’s polling”

@CATOSWYN
I had a look at the FT article and got a little involved in the discussion so sorry if the discussion here has moved on. I do find some economists exasperating. Unfortunately many of them seem to think rather too highly of themselves. Let us just say I find arguing from a false premise to be particularly annoying.

Re Brand, I can see why Miliband did it but I think it will do him more harm than good. Many of the people who are most likely to vote find Brand totally repulsive and kids can’t vote. I just regard him as a bit of a low life with a whiney voice whose opinion is of no interest.

JohnPoliticoif they were level pegging, being ahead in 6 out of the last 7 polls would only happen about 1.5% of the time

Only if each poll individually was moving randomly within MOE around a tie. But if level-pegging is an outcome of averaging the house effects of different pollsters, then part of your five-poll run is mainly just the conjunction of three Tory-leaning pollsters publishing in succession. With ICM, Ashcroft and Survation showing consistent Tory leads, it’s mainly the run of two more Laboury pollsters showing a Tory lead that contribute to the odds against.

Another starter for 10 question – is there any polling on party allegiance and flavour of smartphon?. With no evidence at all I would guess that iOS users would be most left wing and Windows phone most right wing with android users in the middle but just to the right of centre.

LAZLO: the biggest unknown is that the FTPA has never been tested in that kind of scenario. Would DC necessarily automatically resign if he lost the first vote of confidence ? In the past, even before the FTPA, PMs always had the option, when faced with a motion of no confidence, of going for a dissolution and a fresh election instead of resigning straight away. In fact, as you might recall, that happened in 1924 and 1979. Under the FTPA, David Cameron can still do that.: it suffices to stay in office and let the 14-day period expire as, unlike in the German federal constitution for example, the HoC cannot pass a motion of confidence in Miliband’s government if Miliband is not in government . If by not resigning and going back to the polls, DC would be committing “political suicide” or not, it would be up to the voters to decide.

Besides, I’m not entirely convinced yet that Miliband would have the votes anyway to defeat the first MoC and, if DC then indeed resigned and he became PM, to carry the second MoC in less than 14 days.
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